New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

[diamornte]

Where are the critics now?

Did anyone else mention that these M5 machines only come with Thunderbolt 4 instead of Thunderbolt 5? I also have a M4Pro Mac Mini and that has Thunderbolt 5 ports - so that means slower speeds for drives/connections in M4Pro Mini to M5 14" MacBook Pro workflows.

 

[ricketysquire]

Probably shifted from PCIE 3.0 to 4.0 drives if I had to guess.

*Laughs in Gen 5 Samsung 9100 Pro in my PC*

 

[switz]

My fully maxed out M1 Ultra Mac Studio is still working just fine. We did the family laptop upgrades to M4 series processors last year.

The young adults in their late 30s and early 40s retired their Intel units for 14" M4 Pro base model with Nano Screen versions with 48GB of memory and 2TB SSD. I gave them each a fast external 4TB backup SSD and a thumb drive for sneaker net. No complaints.

My wife got a 14" MacBook Pro Max with 64GB ram and 4TB SSD with nano screen and I got a 16" MacBook Pro Max with 128GB Fram an d 8TB SSD with nano screen.

 

[slal03]

Anyone else with the 13 inch M1 Pro with Touch Bar still feel it’s more than enough 😂?

 

[germinator]

Are the speed increases uniform across the various capacities? Larger SSDs tend to be faster already, so I wonder if those large SSD also will be faster.

 

[clv101]

I did a big upgrade to my M4 - kinda maxed it out. I honestly can't think of any feature that would be compelling enough to upgrade for a long time. AI certainly isn't it (especially in it's current form). Screen isn't a thing because 90% of the time, I work on an external monitor.

Apple's in a bit of a pickle - the hardware is so good now that the lifespan is much longer.

Apple's challenge isn't to sell more laptops to their existing customers it's to increase market share. Their laptop market share is only around 10-11%. They could double that, hence the hardware overkill and the expected low cost A18 (pro?) machine.

 

[svish]

Very good to have excellent SSD speeds. Also good to see that it can now be configured to higher capacity.

 

[JackNL]

My main gripe with my 14" MBP M4 (non‑Pro) is that it only scales up to 2880×1620 on my Studio Display, whereas my 16" MBP M3 Pro can reach a 3200×1800 mode.
I’m worried the 14" MBP M5 will have the same limitation—otherwise I’d happily buy one.

 

[JackNL]

Yeah I bet this is their way of comping for tariffs without it showing. And it’s “middle finger to the EU” of course since we’re not talking about a random phone charger thing but a high power brick to charge a laptop battery the size of several phones.
It’s a douchy move tbh

Starting April 2026, the EU requires laptops to be offered optionally without a charger.

 

[sweet160]

22nd

thanks

 

[switz]

Got to love those really cheap power bricks. When the voltages suddenly go out of range due to a component failure, the multi thousand dollar laptop could be toasted. That will not be a warranty repair......

But the owner saved a few dollar on th e power brick.....

 

[jbachandouris]

Best Buy offered me $1100 in trade for my M4 (the extra $100 comes from being a Total Tech Member) so the 'upgrade' will cost me a little over $500.

Pre ordered for instore pickup on Launch Day.

 

[johnnytravels]

My god man ,they're required to remove the charger in EU by law. Look it up. EU banned chargers in phone and laptop boxes.

No they don’t they will require the option for customers to buy without charger.

 

[platinumaqua]

My fully maxed out M1 Ultra Mac Studio is still working just fine. We did the family laptop upgrades to M4 series processors last year.

The young adults in their late 30s and early 40s retired their Intel units for 14" M4 Pro base model with Nano Screen versions with 48GB of memory and 2TB SSD. I gave them each a fast external 4TB backup SSD and a thumb drive for sneaker net. No complaints.

My wife got a 14" MacBook Pro Max with 64GB ram and 4TB SSD with nano screen and I got a 16" MacBook Pro Max with 128GB Fram an d 8TB SSD with nano screen.

I priced out your configurations and I'm honestly surprised how high these can go for

 

[switz]

Thus my lack of interest in any M5 gear.

My M1 Ultra Mac Studio cost over $7,500. The trade in value Apple offered the next year was $1,100 against the M2 Ultra Mac Studio. The used M1 Ultra Mac Studios were on sale in the mid $4,000s recently.

Sure hope there is more than a chip change in the M5 MacBook Pro Pro and M5 Mac Book Pro Max.

Folks with M4 gear are not the target audience to buy M5 gear.

I have often mentioned that we are now in the realm where the app is fast enough for a screen change in the blink of an eye. We can not discern half a blink of an eye, can we?

While in the mountains this month with cellular service for internet access, the M4 MacBook Air screen was just as fast as the M4 MacBook Pro Mac screen as the throttle was the speed of the incoming data.

The donkey cart got the info just as fast as the Ferrari. 😱